it seems this loss is a kind of surpise for some of you... You're not starting a seson playing 3 games in 4 nights in three different cities and winning all of them. Especially, when the last one is against a very good team like Boston. I guess our guys were way more realistic compared to most of us as it was clear they didn't even try to win this one. I cannot blame them. Another question is why Bruins were so passive? Seemed like they wanted to match our effort

Sweet. This dude was brought here for one reason, to punch people in the head - every other thing that he can do, other Wings can do better. I like that we have a head-puncher. The league has other, better head-punchers, but this one is ours. Better than nothing. Good work, Kenny!

I really don't think that the lack of Nyquist was the difference tonight.

No I agree that nyquist wouldn't have won us this game tonight, but with a 3rd line of nyquist-Anderson-Tatar we have 3 legit scoring lines.

The third line is also very tuned and can create a lot of energy for this team. This also allows guys like cleary and Bert to move down a line and maybe create a little offense against weaker lines and defense pairings.

Fact is we have 6 goals through 3 games and that simply isn't enough. Reunite the kid like and I guarantee we produce more offense. Tatar and nyquist also need to play 2nd unit pp

Another question is why Bruins were so passive? Seemed like they wanted to match our effort

They're a Jekyll/Hyde team, like us.

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" - Kierkegaard

"They won in every statistic tonight," Howard said. "Every battle. I'm not going to make that excuse that we were tired or anything like that because I kind of think it's pathetic. We need a better effort out of all of us."

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" - Kierkegaard

Yep, tiredness wasn't the problem and it better isn't. We are early in the season, if they start to get tired that early Holland should consider changing the coaching staff as they obviously hadn't done their jobs.

No, the problem was puckhandling and passing. Boston put us under hard pressure with an aggressive forecheck and our D wasn't able to handle that. It's the same problem we had last season. But I'm pretty optimistic.

Our D-Corps is still very young, 1/3rd of them without a full NHL-Season under their belts. Also, it was only our third game this season, the guys hadn't much time to get used to each other (again). All this will get better as the season goes on and I'm sure if we play Boston in the Playoffs we are able to beat them.

They need to get to work, abdelkader is the only one who will actually hit something on the forecheck. So tired of watching franzen lollygag up the ice and try to take the puck from the opposing player without using his big frame. I mean he was knocked off the puck by semin on friday!

They need to get to work, abdelkader is the only one who will actually hit something on the forecheck. So tired of watching franzen lollygag up the ice and try to take the puck from the opposing player without using his big frame. I mean he was knocked off the puck by semin on friday!

To be fair, Semin is a fairly big body.

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" - Kierkegaard

I think the the big concern right now is that we still seem to be struggling to put the puck in the net. And not just on the power play (which is a given, I guess), but at even strength. Could it be because so much is asked of the forwards in terms of defensive responsibility?

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" - Kierkegaard

Am I the only one who finds it odd that we have a four-day break...after having been forced to play three games in four nights...?

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" - Kierkegaard

No, last season, and the season before was the same (feast or famine).

"If I can be totally honest, it's not a lot of guys you get impressed by. Actually, it's no one else but him. From the bench, to see what move he makes -- you're like, 'I wish I could do that.' Sometimes you sit on the bench and just think, 'wow,' and you look over to the other bench and they sit there and shake their heads, too. He has great, great skills. I'm probably not going to play with another player who has the kind of skills he has." Mikael Samuelsson on Pavel Datsyuk

I think the the big concern right now is that we still seem to be struggling to put the puck in the net. And not just on the power play (which is a given, I guess), but at even strength. Could it be because so much is asked of the forwards in terms of defensive responsibility?

No, there is not enough speed up front. Even Datsyuk is struggling trying to deke through a collapsing defense. First line is okay, but the second is struggling, not to mention the bottom six. Andersson, Cleary, Samuelsson and Bertuzzi are not very quick. Actually Bertuzzi is the only one capable of creating some scoring chances in that group. Babcock must add more speed to the forward group, and especially to the second and third lines. I think Emmerton is probably a better choice as third line center than Andersson because of this.

"Joey (Kocur) has no fear" -Lyndon Byers"Empty-net goals are for homos" -Al Iafrate

It's not just our bottom six its our bottom nine. Look out for Babcock to split Pav and Z in the near future if that line continues not to produce. The problem with the second line is that noone can carry the play on that line. When Pav and Z were together Filpulla would be the guy we used to break the blue line and so far nobody from that line has been able to take that role. None of those guys have been able to work the corners and win battles either. So when you combine not being able to make a clean entry to the zone and not being able to win battles in the corners, your not going to gain possession of the puck in the offensive zone to often and they haven't. I can't think of to many other ways to break the zone if you can't dump the puck and successfully recover it or carry it across the blue line. Hopefully Weiss starts getting comfortable and brings a better game to the table.

As far as our bottom six.. Well Bert, Sammy, and Cleary aren't bad players but at this point they are role players and we are trying to make a line of them. I think we would see alot more dangerous of a line like others have said if he put together Gus, Tatar, and Andersson.

A guy like Bert or Sammy would be alot more effectively utilized in a top six role. We have to many medicore top six players like Franzen, Weiss, and Alfredsson well at this point of his career. We need to eliminate two of those three and replace with one potent player and then plug in Sammy or Bert, then you would see a dangerous line. It just doesn't make sense to use those guys on the third line, they don't bring energy, speed, or heavy fore-checking. They are good cheap players to save cap space and let them float around and give and receive passes to a couple in their prime hockey players. We got alot of talent and are very deep on the offense, but we have the wrong combination of it. I'm not saying we aren't going to be a good team this year because we will be there, but we could be a whole lot better if we made minor moves in the previous couple years.

We do need more speed. Nyquist would go a long way in helping that cause.

Regarding the second line, if one of those three guys really needs to pick it up and lead, I'm gonna say it's Franzen. He knows the systems, he's a huge body with good speed (when he feels like really skating), he's supposed to be one of our big guns in the scoring department, and Babs himself has said he's the key to the line's success (or lack thereof).

I really don't know what to do about our bottom six.

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" - Kierkegaard

We do need more speed. Nyquist would go a long way in helping that cause.

Regarding the second line, if one of those three guys really needs to pick it up and lead, I'm gonna say it's Franzen. He knows the systems, he's a huge body with good speed (when he feels like really skating), he's supposed to be one of our big guns in the scoring department, and Babs himself has said he's the key to the line's success (or lack thereof).
I really don't know what to do about our bottom six.

We like our team...?

It is really hard to get the identity of the bottom 6, they certainly aren't tough or speedy so what is their propose? Maybe call up some guys from GR and see if they can improve the bottom 6 at the end of the day, the DetroitRedWings need guys to help out Z and Pasha and so far I haven' seen Aflie or Weiss being capable of doing so. I haven't given up on Franzen but the Mule should know one thing, he will get bought out if he doesn't pick it up and his NHL carreer could be over, so if losing 40 % of his remaining contract isn't a motivation for him I don't know what is.

It's not just our bottom six its our bottom nine. Look out for Babcock to split Pav and Z in the near future if that line continues not to produce. The problem with the second line is that noone can carry the play on that line. When Pav and Z were together Filpulla would be the guy we used to break the blue line and so far nobody from that line has been able to take that role. None of those guys have been able to work the corners and win battles either. So when you combine not being able to make a clean entry to the zone and not being able to win battles in the corners, your not going to gain possession of the puck in the offensive zone to often and they haven't. I can't think of to many other ways to break the zone if you can't dump the puck and successfully recover it or carry it across the blue line. Hopefully Weiss starts getting comfortable and brings a better game to the table.

As far as our bottom six.. Well Bert, Sammy, and Cleary aren't bad players but at this point they are role players and we are trying to make a line of them. I think we would see alot more dangerous of a line like others have said if he put together Gus, Tatar, and Andersson.

A guy like Bert or Sammy would be alot more effectively utilized in a top six role. We have to many medicore top six players like Franzen, Weiss, and Alfredsson well at this point of his career. We need to eliminate two of those three and replace with one potent player and then plug in Sammy or Bert, then you would see a dangerous line. It just doesn't make sense to use those guys on the third line, they don't bring energy, speed, or heavy fore-checking. They are good cheap players to save cap space and let them float around and give and receive passes to a couple in their prime hockey players. We got alot of talent and are very deep on the offense, but we have the wrong combination of it. I'm not saying we aren't going to be a good team this year because we will be there, but we could be a whole lot better if we made minor moves in the previous couple years.

Weiss a mediocre top six? Three games in. Way to give him a chance. Scoring the overtime winner isn't enough.

Mule is garbage, he could be dominate anytime but he is more then happy to just give up on the play and lay on the ice for 10 minutes. Bertuzzi/Sammy/Cleary line, is this some sort of joke? Bert actually seems halfway decent, Sammy is eh, and Cleary is counted on for losing the puck every time he enters the zone. Tatar was one of our better players last night, so it makes sense to barely play him. Our team as a whole really looked like they didn't give a f***. Our 1st line pp looks so deadly but they can't seem to get a damn goal.

Edited by ben_usmc, 06 October 2013 - 06:37 PM.

There's no I in team, but there's a U in c***, so don't be little jealous c***s